RingCentral’s Sathesh Murthy on AI bridging the gap between customer-agent conversations

RingCentral, a US-based provider of enterprise cloud communications, video meetings, collaboration, and contact centre solutions, considers India as a strategic market. The company has not only bagged approvals from Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to offer enterprise-grade cloud telephony last year, but also plans to double its headcount in the next one year.
In an interview with TechCircle, Sathesh Murthy, Managing Director & Engineering Head for India at RingCentral, discusses how the company is integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its existing operations to enhance customer satisfaction and agent productivity and also elaborates on how India is central to RingCentral’s overall strategy. Edited excerpts:

What kind of challenges are businesses facing with an increase in demand for cloud communication services?

While contact centres increasingly use cloud-based services for communication and collaboration, such as Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), data from customer interactions and employee conversations have often been isolated and decontextualised, leading to a communication gap within organisations. To bridge this gap, service providers are now utilising AI that offers real-time data analysis and valuable insights.

How can AI-generated insights from everyday conversations help in enhancing customer and employee experiences?

AI technology in business communication, like smart chatbots and conversation intelligence (which uses advanced AI tools to transcribe and analyse conversations instantly to offer valuable insights) are drastically changing customer service. The goal is to leverage AI to extract insights from daily conversations within enterprises, improving decision-making and productivity. AI-generated conversation insights can help contact centre agents deliver personalised service and provide managers with coaching suggestions based on top-performing call handling. For employees, AI can highlight key points from meetings and team discussions, enhancing knowledge sharing and efficiency. In the future, we envision ambient computing where AI enhances human capabilities without increasing overhead.

What is RingCentral's approach towards centralised and enriched organisational communication with AI-powered insights derived from everyday conversations?

RingCentral's unified platform seamlessly connects all communication methods within a company, including voice, video, messaging, and contact centre services. By centralising interactions, we leverage AI and machine learning to gain valuable insights from various channels. Our platform integrates with popular productivity tools, providing a consolidated view of organisational dialogues and processes. AI-driven insights, such as speech recognition and sentiment analysis, are delivered within the user interface. The goal is to enhance human capabilities without introducing separate applications or additional training. This approach is a key part of our product strategy.

How is the company leveraging AI to enhance cloud integration, streamlining enterprise communications across multiple channels?

RingSense is our advanced platform for business communications and collaboration. It offers AI-powered features like automated summaries, action items, and coaching insights for sales teams. We also recently launched RingEX (a revamp of RingCentral MVP), which combines RingSense AI with capabilities for phone calls, SMS, meetings, and messaging. This includes real-time call notes, messaging recaps, and generative AI search. Our AI journey began years ago, and we already provide features like live transcriptions and automated meeting summaries. With RingSense, we enhance efficiency through data-driven coaching, decision-making, and process optimisation across all interactions.

How did securing approvals from the DoT, TRAI, for offering cloud telephony services in India help RingCentral’s operations?

Getting the Unified Licence from DoT and TRAI approvals was a huge achievement for RingCentral. It has greatly enhanced our ability to provide cloud communications services within India. Previously, we could only cater to Indian multinational clients using our global cloud infrastructure located outside of India. But now, with the necessary regulatory clearances in place, we can establish local cloud telephony infrastructure within India itself. It allows us to introduce our Phone system specifically designed for customers based in India. We ensure full compliance with security, encryption, data localisation, and other regulatory requirements mandated by Indian authorities like DoT and TRAI. Moreover, these approvals enable us to connect with Indian telecom service providers and offer local telephone number provisioning across different regions in India. Customers in major metro areas such as Mumbai and parts of Karnataka can now access our phone capabilities integrated with our complete RingEX stack. From an operational standpoint, we now have a well-defined regulatory framework that facilitates the rapid expansion of our business in India. We can hire more staff, establish infrastructure, and develop additional product features tailored to the needs of Indian customers.

What technologies are you exploring to improve employee engagement and deliver exceptional customer experiences?

We’re fully committed to supporting India's digitalisation goals by empowering workforce communications and collaboration. Our cloud communications platform enables Indian enterprises to quickly digitise their communication infrastructure and adopt a flexible work model. We are investing in AI and machine learning to drive innovation in conversational intelligence and digital engagement. By applying advanced AI to work conversations, we enhance productivity and decision-making. We also focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences through our integrated Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) offering and unified communications capabilities. Our global cloud platform enables organisations to create seamless omnichannel experiences using AI, analytics, and open APIs to optimise operations.

Given India's strategic importance as a research and development hub, what are your plans for hiring and investment in the country in the next 12-18 months?

India is crucial to RingCentral's product development and we plan to expand our presence here. We have already doubled our workforce in India and our innovation teams are making significant contributions. We are actively recruiting top engineering talent in areas like AI/ML, cloud computing, mobile app development, and DevOps. Our goal is to grow our team in India and drive innovation in our communications solutions. We are also investing in expanding our office infrastructure. India will play a pivotal role in our mission to lead global business communications.